Bob Mackin
A B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered an Iranian-born permanent resident of Dubai to be extradited to the U.S. to face fraud and money laundering charges.
In a Jan. 10 judgment released Jan. 21, Justice Michael Tammen found there was a “sufficient body of evidence” that a reasonable jury might conclude Seyed Abood Sari, 62, was more than a middle manager for an airline designated a terrorist entity.
(BC Court of Appeal)
Tammen said Sari would not be surrendered until after 30 days elapsed. He has the right to appeal the decision and seek bail. The court order was forwarded to Canada’s Minister of Justice Arif Virani for final approval.
Sari was the general manager in Dubai for Tehran-based Mahan Air, which the U.S. government sanctioned in October 2011 for financially, materially and technologically supporting Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force and Beirut-based Hezbollah.
Sari arrived Jan. 17, 2019 at Vancouver International Airport on a British Airways flight from London and told officers that he planned to celebrate his birthday with his two sons who were studying at universities in Vancouver. Sari was arrested due to an outstanding U.S. warrant for allegedly using front companies and middlemen to disguise financial transactions for Mahan Air and deceive banks in order to get around U.S. sanctions.
“A jury might conclude that Mr. Sari was a participant in a scheme which used fraudulent means to carry out banking transactions on behalf of Mahan Air, knowing that in so doing he was putting the bank’s financial interests at risk,” Tammen wrote. “There is thus sufficient evidence for committal for conduct which corresponds to the Canadian offence of fraud.”
Tammen’s verdict said the entire body of evidence was circumstantial and based on searches of various email accounts, including Sari’s. The U.S. built its case around email that revealed a conspiracy among Mahan Air employees to disguise the corporate identity of those engaging in transactions with U.S. banks to benefit Mahan Air.
Sari claimed there was insufficient evidence to deem him the directing mind or financial authority of any of the 21 front companies. But Tammen disagreed.
Sari “at minimum, acted as a conduit for some of the allegedly fraudulent transactions. An available inference is that Mr. Sari had knowledge of the scheme and was a knowing participant in it,” Tammen wrote.
Despite all that, Tammen called the case record dense and suggested the U.S. may fall short at trial in proving the case against Sari beyond a reasonable doubt.
In May 2020, during the first Trump administration, the U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned China-based Shanghai Saint Logistics for providing freight booking on Mahan Air flights between China and Iran. The U.S. said Mahan Air was aiding both the Maduro regime in Venezuela and the Assad regime in Syria.
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